Obtuseness is to ignore your heart
by imagined-experiences
Summary: Lavender was the one who settled Blaise Zabini, at least, she thought she had.


This was written for round 2 of the contest/challenge by honeybeebeauty and never-ending nights with you, and also for the halfbaked challenge by Static Lull which gave me Blaise and Lavender. **The prompt for the contest was define love, hate or heartbreak in a fic.**

Thanks Ela for having beta-read it, and thanks Schermionie for your advices on the title (and for pointing out my vocabulary mistake)!

Enjoy and review :)

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Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were having dinner, in the small apartment they shared in Diagon Alley.

"Blaise Zabini invited me to lunch tomorrow," Lavender Brown casually informed her friend.

"The one who dates a different girl every week, according to you?" Parvati asked.

"Well, do you know others Zabinis?"

"Have you accepted?"

"Of course! He's handsome and smart, how could I have refused?" answered Lavender, outraged.

"Lav, you have talked to him, what? Five times the max. And you are the one who always tell me about his flighty behaviour," reasoned Parvati.

"Why do you think I noticed his behaviour? I know I could be the one who will settle him."

"Lav, please, be careful with your heart. You seem pretty sure of yourself, and you will be disappointed and I will be the one to comfort you; like I do every time."

Since the end of the war, Lavender had dated many boys, and each time she had been disappointed. The scars she had on her shoulders and neck had always bothered her. And she wanted to persuade herself that she was still attractive, and dating and seducing had been her solution.

"Don't worry, I have the feeling that this time, I'll won't be sad."

"The feeling? Have you gone to the Seer, again?"

"Maybe."

"So I guess tomorrow we'll not have lunch together. But please, be careful with your heart. Blaise Zabini will not care about it."

Lavender hadn't noticed the last sentence her friend had said. This had been the only secret Parvati kept from her best friend: She had experienced Zabini disinterest for feelings in her Hogwarts' day; he had broken her heart, at that time. And even if she had recovered well, she was worried for Lavender.

--

When Lavender Brown had said she would be the one to settle Blaise Zabini, she had been correct. Parvati was relieved. They were dating for six months, it had been Blaise's personal record. They both worked in the Prophet building, gossip stories for her, sports stories for him.

"Marc, have you seen Blaise?" Lavender asked her boyfriend's colleague.

"He's covering a game, and it will probably take a lot of time. Canons v. Kenmare, worst Seekers ever!"

"Okay, could you give him that note if you see him?"

She wrote some words on a piece of parchment and gave it to Marc.

"Sure."

She apparated to her apartment.

"Parv! Great news, I'm going to Paris for an interview! Lydia went sick, she can't cover it! "

"That's awesome! When?"

"In thirty minutes! I couldn't reach Blaise, but I sent him a note with Marc and an owl. But if you see him, could you please explain to him I'm living for three days?"

"Sure! Girl, go pack! You're going to Paris!"

At ten o'clock that night, Blaise Zabini entered the apartment that Lavender and Parvati shared, a bottle of wine in his hand.

"Sorry, love, I know I'm late, but that game didn't want to finish," he said to the human form sat on the settee.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm Parvati," she told him. "Lav isn't here, I guess you haven't received her letter. She went to Paris for an interview, it was a surprise for her, and she couldn't reach you."

He went on the armchair and sat.

"She won't be here before three days, Blaise. You can leave, you know," she informed him.

"I just went to the Muggle word in Bordeaux to buy this Sauterne, after a twelve hour, awful Quidditch game. I deserve a little rest."

"Sauterne, a Muggle and French wine; I had expected you to buy at least a Chambave Muscat, you know, an Italian one."

"Don't tell, but I admit that Muggles are good with wine. But since when have you a knowledge about wines? I didn't recall you enjoyed wine." he observed.

She shrugged. Her father had a wine import society.

"You knew me when I was fifteen," she replied.

"Do you have something to eat with that wine?" he asked.

"Cheese?"

"Perfect," he smiled at her.

Maybe it was because of the wine, or maybe it was because of the excellent time they had spent together that reminded them Hogwarts' years, but that morning they had awakened in Parvati's bedroom.

She had lowered her defenses. As it had been her best friend's boyfriend, she shouldn't have. He was her ex-boyfriend too. He had been her first. And now she was in her bed with him, her best friend's boyfriend.

She cried. She hated herself for what she had done, and blaming it on the alcohol would have been a lie: She had wanted it.

She always knew that the reason of their mutual breakup was stupid. They were sixteen and in the middle of a war, on opposite sides, but they were in love. At that time, they thought love was a fairytale, with white horses and romantic dinners they couldn't afford. They broke up because they believed what they had was an illusion. That it was not worth the danger they could find. They thought that meeting only in the middle of the night and whispering sweet words was not real, that it was not love. They thought that love was marriage and blessing from parents: They had grew up beleving it. They were wrong.

They had forgotten love was a feeling. That love came from the heart. You didn't express love with materials things, but with shared feelings and emotions: It was what they had experienced last night and the many others time during their Hogwarts' years.

She understood it now, but it was too late. Not that the feeling had disappeared, no. But now he was with Lavender, and what they had done was unforgivable. She needed to leave that bed. When she rose from the bed, tears in her eyes, Blaise awoke.

"Parv," he murmured.

She didn't answer.

"Parv, we need to talk about what had happened last night."

"I don't want to talk about that mistake."

"It's not a mistake! It was, it was egoistical, sudden and pleasurable, but it's not a mistake. It was love, I guess." He paused. "It is love," he added more firmly.

"It's insane. Lavender..." She couldn't continue her sentence. She began to sob and he closed his eyes.

He had forgotten about Lavender. The time with Parvati had been so good, he had forgotten about his girlfriend.

"Parv, please." He reached for her. She escaped his tentative embrace and walked away.

He knew she needed time to think over, he needed it too. What he had had with Lavender was good, but what he had had with Parvati was even more than good, it was perfection. He said it was egoistical, and it was true. Love was the less selfish form of egotism. Love was a shared soul, a shared path and the rest didn't matter. She had to understand that.

He walked off the bedroom to find her on the settee, her head in her hands. He approached and hugged her, she didn't escape that time.

"I love you," he whispered in her ear. "I love you, and we will figure out what to do."

She continued sobbing in his shirt. The affliction she felt was horrible. Her heart was torn between Lavender and Blaise. She knew she couldn't have both, and it was heartbreaking.

She felt sick, lost and distressed. She wanted him to lie to her, to tell her that she could have both. She grabbed his shirt's collar, trying to find an enclave to let her sorrow go.

They stayed like that for a moment, and he let her cry. But they needed to do something. Time had stopped the previous night, but now, it had resumed. Only two days before Lavender would be back again.

"Parvati," he murmured. "We need to sort this out. I can't be with Lavender anymore." The name of his girlfriend was hard to pronounce for him.

"I can't lose her, I can't lose you." She was still in a state of shock.

He was used to lying to people and to have multiples love interests at the same time. "When the heart doesn't know, the heart doesn't suffer" he had always said. But it was different this time because she was suffering, he was suffering.

Hearts were suffering and would suffer even more once Lavender would be back.

He made a decision, they were going to fly away. It was the first time he understood and really felt what love was. And he was not willing to let it go.

"We're running away," he informed her. "I have this house in Italy, we can go there."

She looked at him.

"You're a coward," she answered him. "We have to confront this, this mess we have."

"Do you really think what you've just said?" he asked, angry. "You think that considering to abandon my job, my status for you, for love is a cowardly thing to do?"

"No." She lightly smiled at him. He was fighting for his love, for her. She thought it was romantic, but still. "What I wanted to say it's that we can't abandon everything like that. We have to confront La-" Her voice was trembling, she was unable to continue, but she had made her decision. She would fight for him. For them.

Because love also implied fighting for it. They ignored it the first time, but they were young. Now, they had understood and they couldn't ignore it again. They were going to suffer, but in the end they knew it would be worth it.


End file.
